The Prompt Project

we wake up at exactly 6:05 every morning. we shuffle out into the hall in perfect harmony. we rub the sleep from our eyes, yawn, stretch and scratch our bellies. our flimsy shirts ride up and show a sliver of skin. our bare feet soak in the cold from the tiles.

"Line up!" says the nurse from behind her station, and we do. it's not worth it not too.

every morning we wake up and get these pills to swallow. they're capsules: half is solid silver, and the other half is cased in a thin, transparent cover and the insides are molten. liquid silver in pill form.

we don't know what they do, but we still take them anyways because not taking them is worse than taking them, and I don't think they really do anything anyways. so, bottoms up and down the hatch they go.

sometimes, we'll go back to sleep. sometimes, we smoke cigarettes on the veranda barefoot. there's no shoes allowed in the Prism (nicknamed the Prison), and the clothes are the lightest, softest, flimsiest things you could imagine. but sometimes - just sometimes - they come and take someone away, and we don't ever see them again. it was shocking at first; I'd wonder where they'd go. but eventually, it just faded into the background; it was part of the normal routine.

every afternoon we get more pills to swallow. this time they're always different colors. blue, red, purple, orange. those are the names they tell us when we ask what they are.

"Don't worry, dear, it's just Orange."

Or, "We call that one Indigo."

Or when the nurses are grumpy, they'll say, "It's anything you want it to be; now, swallow."

I'll do what I'm told, but I won't do it without an answer so on those days I ask, "Pretty please, which one is this?"

people come and go all the time in here, and when we take the afternoon pills (whatever color they happen to be) a lot more people are taken.

I just smoke my cigarette's and keep to myself. sometimes I wonder if I'll ever get taken; sometimes, I hope I am because I'd like to know where the others go.

every night we get another pill. this one is always gold - always - the way ones in the morning are always silver. no one is taken when we take them, but they still give it to us anyways.

I take them without question because I know these ones are called Golds.

you're probably wondering why I take these pills without ever asking what they are; I used to wonder, too. until one day, I saw this kid I used to hang out and smoke cigarettes on the veranda with get taken down. he decided he wasn't going to take the pills anymore, and they took him, kicking and screaming, and just to make sure no one else decided to try it, they made us watch what happened.

that night they stuck us in straight jackets and tied us all together and marched us down to the observatory deck . it was this big dome-shaped thing with a skylight so we could do our astronomy lessons because we still needed to be educated. but it wasn't the same.

the middle had sunken in or been retracted or something, and there was a pit in the middle with a railing so we couldn't fall over. it must have been twenty feet deep at least. and there was my friend: red-rimmed, blood-shot eyes with red spittle covering his lips and dribbling down his chin. they had him strapped down in a chair.

the Overseer - whom we had heard of but never seen before - was there. you could tell it was him because he had an air of pompous authority draped around his shoulders and no one recognized him. he wore these thin, metal framed glasses that wouldn't let us see his eyes, and he was bald except for a comb-over. he licked his lips quite often; it made me think of a lizard of some sort.

he marched up and down the row, and every time he passed me I felt a shiver crawl down my back. I didn't like having the Overseer to my back.

"Now then, my fine gentlemen and ladies," he began, "now you will see what happens when you defy us." And he looked down into the pit, caught the eye of another man - he wore a hood, executioner style - and nodded.

the man was dressed in all white; in fact, for the first time, I realized we were all dressed in white. I only know the color because they gave us white pills once to see what would happen. they didn't take anyone that day, and we've never had a white pill since. we've never had black pills either because when they gave it to a group to test, they all died.

the man stepped up to my friend and whispered something in his ear; I could see my friend calm, and the man held something to his lips. his voice rang out.

"We get these pills to swallow..." he said, and he stared at the Overseer the whole time, "the way they stick in your throat...it tastes like gold."

I never knew that word before, or what "gold" was, and I wondered how he knew. it was pure luck that I turned away then - I couldn't bear to see his face - and I saw the Overseer blanch.

"Enough!" his face turned a shade I'd never known before, so I couldn't tell you what color it was.

the man cut my friend short, tucked away the voice enhancer, and brought a tray forward. he made sure we saw the needle and the liquid. he made sure we saw him stick it into my friends arm. It was painful, I could see that. I made sure to catch my friends eye, and I refused to look away. I tried to make him understand he was not alone, and I think he understood because when he died, he died with a smile.

the Overseer was furious; I could see it in the jerky movements and the way his neck muscles strained. but he pretended to be calm. that night he gave us gold pills. we didn't used to have them, you see. but he's given us gold pills every night since.

the call for the Golds is going up and I step in line and take mine. this night is different. I can feel it.

when I get my Gold, I take a deep breath and close my eyes. I press it to my lips and think of my friend. I try to remember his name but I can't. but I think about him - hard - and while I'm thinking I push it between my lips and swallow and keep thinking and my ears ring with his words and maybe something else and I can hear a vague gasp.

It happens all at once. I open my eyes and my hands are gold and my eyes are gold and my breath is gold. Everything is gold - all of me. And I remember his name was Argent, and my name Aureate, which I'd never known before, and I see all the face around me are amazed. Then Argent is there, and he's taking my hand and saying, "They didn't kill me; they just realized I'd been a color for a while."

I asked him what happens now, and he said: "Now, we're born. We go and become what we were meant to be: we go and color the world. You were golden before I met you; you never needed those pills - I guess now you finally realized it."

And I see the nurses and the Overseer all rushing towards us, but the crowd is too thick and then we're gone.

So, you see, we take these pills, they get stuck in your throat, and the way they taste...they taste like color.